COVID-19 Fraud

There is so much to talk about, but I'll focus on the Paycheck Protection Program, which is the mechanism to allocate a large chuck of the $2 trillion legislated to help businesses. This money goes to small businesses (under 500 employees) to cover payroll costs for staff that they didn't lay off. Take your total payroll, multiple it by 2.5 and the government will basically just give you that money. The form is three pages long and utterly generic (taken from legislation that was written over the course of just a week). As far as I can tell, you don't have to show any proof (like payroll receipts) or that COVID-19 negatively affected your business. For example, my nonprofit organization has to cancel several fundraising events, but they don't actual ask for that information. Banks will have to administer this program and they are completely unprepared to deal with something of this magnitude. And the fraud is going to be overwhelming. My only hope is that technically this money is loan with the expectation that you won't have to pay it back. Hopefully, the process that decides when to make a loan into a grant will include significant oversight (with penalties for fraud).